With India poised to receive its first import of liquefied natural gas, the government has drawn up plans to expand in a big way the CNG supplies to several urban areas in the country.

"We have drawn up ambitious plans for spreading the benefits of CNG to the urban centres of India. Availability of natural gas will shortly improve with the arrival of LNG at Dahej (Gujarat) by the end of this month," petroleum secretary B K Chaturvedi said at a seminar during the ongoing Auto Expo in New Delhi on Monday.

By 2006-07, there would be 1,000 three-wheelers running on hydrogen under a pilot project, but challenges like shortage of hydrogen, its storage, and transportation would have to be met, he said.

There were plans to introduce CNG in cities not covered so far. To begin with, CNG would be supplied to the cities located along or close to the existing gas pipeline networks, Chaturvedi said, adding with the creation of a national gas grid, almost the entire country would be covered.

He said the country had acquired know-how and expertise in all aspects of using CNG as a fuel.